Edd's Travels: Mexico City (continued)

No, there aren't any Taco Bells here in Mexico. Apparently they've tried a few times over the years but they always get laughed out of town. (By the same token, there is no Wagamama in Japan.) In the UK, what we get served in 'Mexican' chains like Chiquitos or Las Iguanas is as much American as it is Mexican. An example is the dish of chimichanga: I've had it many times in the UK, and indeed I had one on my last day in Colombia, but I literally haven't seen it mentioned on any menu anywhere in Mexico City during the whole of my two weeks here.

It's good to have the option of delving a little deeper and sampling the real thing. The best way to do so is to be adventurous and eat the street food. If you're outside the touristy areas then you can buy tacos from the stalls at the equivalent of only about a pound each. The same applies for the quesadillas and the gorditas and the tostadas and the tlacoyos. And indeed the pizza slices. I tried to eat my way through the whole of a fiver, but had to go home and lie down after spending four quid. Bliss.

I did have a look around the aforementioned touristy areas, because that's where all the craft beer shops are. But it's also where all the Americans are, specifically, the annoying bratty preppy American rich kids partying on the cheap between the Ivy League college and the job at Daddy's investment firm. Meh. As for the beer shops, the selections are limited and the prices are outrageous. A bottle of generic German beer (Paulaner, Erdinger) is at least five quid. Local mediocre craft brews are six quid. But you can get Lagunitas IPA in Walmart for less than two quid. No contest.

Enough of boring you about beer. Now it's time to bore you about football. I went to see Mexico versus Honduras and it was literally my first ever international match. I've never seen England play. However, that little personal milestone isn't quite as significant, for the purposes of this blog, as the fact that the match was played at the Azteca stadium. As in the two World Cups, Mexico '70 and Mexico '86. Maradona, hand of God, and all that. Bit of a footballing Top Trump card. See photo.

An incidental fact about the 'hand of God' goal is that mostly-forgotten England player Steve Hodge swapped shirts with Maradona post-match and subsequently sold the shirt in 2022, after Maradona's death, via Sotheby's, for seven million quid. That's one way to earn your pension.

Continuing with the sporting theme, I've added an interesting new entry to the list of Things That I've Paid To See Despite Having Absolutely No Interest In Them. It's lucha libre, broadly speaking the Mexican equivalent of American WWE / WWF wrestling, as made famous by Jack Black in a 2006 film called 'Nacho Libre'. Lucha libre translates as 'free fight' but, like its American counterpart, it is of course about as 'free' as a Bach chorale. You can't improvise throwing people head-first out of a ring; they'd break their necks. I concede nonetheless that the choreography is impressive. See photo, again.

On the whole CDMX is a fascinating place, full of culture and history, very liveable, and also very affordable if you're prepared to be just slightly adventurous about where you live and where you go and how you get there. (I've hardly ever seen other tourists on the buses and metros. Cowards.) In more than two weeks here I've barely scratched the surface, and I think I'd like to come back. But in the meantime I'm going to keep on keeping on.

Random slice of Mexican street life.
From a moving bus.

Vasconcelos
Libraries are an occasional theme in my blog and this is one of the very best.

No prizes for guessing which American film/stage teenage musical is called 'Vaseline' in Spanish.
The new title gives me all kinds of ideas for sub-plots, which I'd better keep to myself.